Steve Young: Time To Open Things Up!

Steve Young, never heard of him…

I do think the Niners need to open it up more, especially on third down. No more trick plays like Delanie Walker handoffs, give the ball to Alex and see if he can convert some of them.

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I don’t know that we have to take an entire game and say throw it 40+ times, but I think it would be good to practice openning it up in game situations.

If Eli is on, our secondary is going to get torched a few times and Alex is going to have to make some throws. It would not be suprised if Alex has to execute the 2 minute drill to win the game.

Now, offensively, is where if we’re actually going to threaten – and we might as well, we’re 7-1, let’s go deep! Let’s do it! – I talked about this a couple week ago, at some point as we have some games to, not waste, but some games to toy a little bit, not toy, what’s the word, we have games that we have to really push the envelope, let’s do it offensively, let’s throw the ball 40 times just once, just to see how it goes.

But you don’t do that against a team like the Giants… you do it against a division rival or something like that since they’re so far out of it.

choose this week to throw the ball 40 times, not against the Giants DL… I joked at the beginning of the season that they may as well expose Alex Smith to danger, because hey, Alex Smith!… but now I am not so sure. Arizona or Seattle would be a good choice, especially after they are out of the race.

They are probably going to have 3-4 games at the end of the season where everything is as close to clinched as it can be.
Either that or they are going to lay an egg in the first half of a game and have to play catchup in the 2nd half… then you will see some passing.

To be honest… the injury list for this week has me a little worried. They have 8 games left and if they go 4-4 they probably have a 1st round bye. At some point, the primary goal of the team will be to keep/get everyone healthy.

This is the first game this year that actually has direct playoff seed implications. Granted, if we make some boneheaded mistakes and get down big early, we don’t have a choice.

But against a poor offense, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t.

When you have a defense like ours you have the luxury of taking more risk because there is a very good chance that you won’t have to pay for failing.

And when you succeed, you strengthen your defense because the greater the lead, the more risk the other team has to take which provides more opportunity for the defense to make big plays.

when referring to the 49ers

Steve Young has been saying this every interview since he retired. Again it’s not a matter of will, it’s a matter of not yet having the skill.

Throwing on 3rd and 7
versus
Running a reverse or tight end handoff

I don’t think that’s asking too much

I think the 49ers are at a point where they need to open things up in the passing game, if not they will lose Gore again in the next couple of weeks. Gores ankle is already tweaked, so if the passing game don’t open up then the 49ers will lose their running game to injury again. I’m not saying Hunter cant run I just don’t think Hunter is ready to take every snap, so in order to keep Gore healthy and keep the running game strong I think that the passing game definitely needs to open up. If Smith cant get it done then lets see what the kid can do, but that’s just my opinion.

I think a compromise might work just as well; not necessarily +40 passes in a game…but somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 throws w/some of these going deep; we’re predominantly a run team & if only a limited number of opposing defenses can stop our bread & butter, I don’t see why we should game plan by ‘pass-heavy-team-rules’

you wanna throw for +400 yards like Vick did against us, that’s fine; we’ll ram the ball down your throat, mix it in through the air and see comes out on top; in this instance, we did. Our offense ain’t broke…I see no reason to dramatically change it

When we get to the Playoffs (doesn’t that sound good) teams will be gearing up for the Niners run offense. They will try & will succeed to a certain extent to stop our run. Just like we stop other teams runs. If Gore gets 70-80 ypg, where do we go to get points? Might as well see what you have now under fire. Can Alex throw 20-30 yard completions on a regular basis. Without INT’s. Can he float one in the corner of the end-zone? I know the coaches know this, they are to good not to know, work on, that type of thing. Better to do it now, when we can work on it than when we need it in a game with the score 27-10 their way!! That is not the time to say Alex pull our butt out of the fire!

without completing the ball the play is worthless

They should focus more on sharing carries with Hunter/DIxon so Gore remains healthy come playoffs

I don’t want to be greedy, but I want it to be useful, because if everybody agrees that they’re more predictable, we know what we’re going to get week to week, then why not? Why say: “Good year. We went to the playoffs. We went one-and-out. But, boy, next year! Look what we can do!” No, we’re here!

Which is why they should throw a hail mary the first play…when the Giants are least expecting it

Of course we need to open it up

The question is, though, if we can

It’s already been said, but the offensive unit, and conservative coaches, cannot allow the defense and Gore to shoulder all the weight. Gore doesn’t have many 16 game seasons. He needs to rest up. If we are to continue with the run game, I’d like to see Hunter and Dixon start to get 10 carries a-piece in the divisional games.

You can tell he wishes he was still suiting up. Roman/Harbaugh have gotten the Niners this far. Winning right off the bat too, and barely looking back. Realistically, SF could be 8-0 right now, yet we have all these pundits/fans trying to dictate what the team “should” be doing. That is just hilarious. Harbaugh does EVERY little thing he can to make this the absolute best team he can, and he hates losing. Yet, even though he is very sav-vy, he somehow hasn’t realized that the TEAM MUST START THROWING IT DEEP. Hilarious. All is well, and all is well, and every little thing shall be well.

That would be relevant to this question?

1) Harbaugh is fearless.

2) Harbaugh is smart.

3) Harbaugh will do the right thing.

We can offer our opinions here, and maybe they will throw a lot if the Giants play a lot of base and load the box.. This decision cannot be made in a vacuum. It depends on the situation and the defenses the Giants present. This is not a dress rehearsal for a high school musical.

of course, also a primary concern.

… ( Roman ) …He keeps getting better, therefore his last practice was his best one. And I mean that sincerely. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Knowing where guys are, seamlessly eliminating a read presnap perhaps, on a presnap look, and just moving smoothly into your next read, it’s just time on task and the more he does it, the better he gets at it…. lets keep in mind , that the best has yet to come …!!

Throwing 40 times might be fun.

Here is another possibility: prioritize first downs.
Try to possess the ball for 36 minutes or more. Try to limit the giants offense to 62 snaps.

Now that would be entertaining! (Maybe do that with a 50/50 mix of pass and run!)